It’s very easy to become stuck in the past. With metal, loads of people refuse to look to anything past a certain period be it because they love the classic material so much that it can’t be topped in their eyes. Black metal fans are very guilty of this as throngs of people are caught in the 90s where everything from the genre was vicious, raw, and absolutely unforgiving. After forming a whole 27 years ago, Dutch act Funeral Winds rewards diehard classic fans with their newest album, and it’s everything we’ve come to love from classic black metal.

To keep a band going since 1991 without any sort of hardcore touring, a massive amount of releases, or becoming a household name in a genre like black metal is quite something to hear and definitely prompts investigation if you’re anything like me. Outside an EP release three years ago, this band out of the Netherlands hasn’t released any material since 2007 which is quite something to just come back from. Nine years isn’t exactly a typical break between full-lengths, but Funeral Winds returns to “Sinister Creed” to make it an incredibly powerful return at the very least. Not wasting any time at all, Funeral Winds busts back onto the scene with a scathing set of eight tracks that a straight up slaughter upon all who listen to its contents of vicious black metal straight from the glory days of the style. “Sinister Creed” provides in tasteful excess unrelenting speed, the kind of debauchery whose sound alone could burn church walls, and a power that really gets the fucking blood pumping.  It’s the exact kind of album that made black metal as prolific as it has become and what Funeral Winds lack in the amount of material they easily make up for it in pure quality as their take on black metal is all but faithful to the classic image, and it’s executed with immaculate precision.

There’s an unending list of bands that have tried their hands at recreating the classic sound, but extremely few have succeeded with stupendous results. Funeral Winds is a living fossil that continues to thrive to this very day and refuses to be put down! “Sinister Creed” is a magnificent resurrection of a sound that never quite truly died, but we’ve rarely seen quality material from its depths until now and it’s all but tantalizing!

“Sinister Creed” releases on January 29th via Avantgarde Music!

LISTEN to “Sinister Creed” on Bandcamp here.

LIKE Funeral Winds on Facebook here.